Thursday, June 01, 2017

A Memo To Donald Trump ...

June 1, 2017

To: Donald Trump
From: Beth Kujawski
Re: Everything

My mind labors to comprehend the depths of your malfeasance, and the damage you are doing to our country and to the planet. The consternation stems, in large part, from your blithe disregard for reality. You seem far too dopey to be any kind of evil genius. You seem far too incurious about anything that does not bear your name in 20-foot letters to be doing deliberate damage.

And yet, the havoc you wreak is immense. And daily. In a mere four months, you have shattered the standing of the United States in the world. The world openly mocks us and we, with you as our "leader," deserve to be mocked. In what insane realm does an braggadocio-afflicted confessed sexual assaulter, reality-TV host, and filer of multiple bankruptcies become the President of the United States?

We now live in this insanity, a world in which coal miners believe we as a country are going to turn back the clock 100 years and they will return to that golden era when they died too young of black lung if they didn't die underground, in which those who voted for you most fervently and earnestly are beginning to admit that you are not the president they thought you'd be but who insist they will continue to support you, even as you strip them of their access to health care … and treatment for addiction … and food, so incapable they are of admitting they were horribly, horribly, horribly wrong.

Bigots, racists, misogynists, and white supremacists are newly emboldened by your words and the permission they grant to those who are the most despicable among us. Yes, they are deplorable. By what possible measure are they not, scrawling slurs, hurling hatred, slashing throats in the name of "patriotism"?

Perhaps you suffer from mental impairment greater than narcissism and megalomania. Perhaps you are delusional. Perhaps you have dementia. Perhaps you are just dumb.

When you bombed Syria, you said it was in response to seeing the carnage inflicted by Assad. Were you pretending and lying or were you telling the truth? If you were telling the truth, if you are capable of being moved by the plight of others, listen to the people in our government who understand how our democracy functions and the role we must play in the world. Really listen. Don't dismiss them as holdovers from an administration you are intent on erasing. You cannot erase it. Yes, you have the power to undo much of the good that was hard won. But if you care not for the hundreds of millions of Americans, act in service of your own ego.

You are writing your legacy. This part will be mercilessly unkind and etched in history. As we revere the good of Abraham Lincoln, someday, as they read your legacy, our descendants will shake their heads with scorn.

You can change that.

Please change that. You have grandchildren. If you care at all for the children of Syria today, consider what your grandchildren will face as they grow. They will read about you. And they will ask why you didn't care.